MassPrivateIDHS’ solicitation for bids had nothing to do with asking a contractor to build a nationwide license plate tracking database. Such a database already exists. The solicitation was more than likely merely a procedural necessity towards the goal of obtaining large numbers of agency subscriptions to said database, so that ICE agents across the country could dip into it at will, as many have been doing for years already. There was never a plan to “build” a plate database.
The database is operated by a private corporation called Vigilant Solutions and contains nearly two billion records of our movements, and grows by nearly 100 million records per month.
DHS wants to track you everywhere you drive, click here to find out how we can stop it!
Contrary to the impression that many seem to have that DHS does not use license plate readers, some of the agency’s sub-organizations have been using the technology for years now. Customs, Border Patrol, for example, operates license plate readers at every land border crossing, a fact that has been somewhat widely reported. You have to read beyond headlines like “Department of Homeland Security cancels national license-plate tracking plan” to understand that DHS already makes substantial use of license plate readers, both by deploying its own and accessing privately held databases containing billions of records.
It seems as if many people are under the mistaken impression that we dodged a surveillance-bullet when DHS withdrew this solicitation. We didn’t. A national plate tracking database exists, run by Vigilant Solutions, and it’s widely used by law enforcement nationwide. The company is currentlyaggressively defending in court its ability to track anyone it wants, however it wants. If you’d like to see which agencies have access to its rapidly growing database, you should click here and scroll through the drop down menu.
More Americans than ever are aware of the threat mass license plate tracking poses to our privacy on the our roads & highways.
http://privacysos.org/node/1332
Residents of Arivaca push to remove ‘militaristic’ illegal border checkpoint:
Residents of the southern Arizona town of Arivaca are monitoring a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint to see how many arrests and drug seizures are made in a bid to remove longstanding interior checkpoints on the roads leading into the town.
Arivaca residents say they are regularly subjected to delays, searches, harassment and racial profiling at the checkpoints. Six residents monitored the checkpoint Wednesday on Arivaca Road, 25 miles north of the Mexico border.
Bobbie Chitwood, who has lived in Arivaca for 36 years, told The Los Angeles Times she plans to volunteer to monitor the checkpoint at least once a week.
“This just impedes the movement of people,” Chitwood said. “It feels very militaristic. The checkpoints feel like the beginning of something that could get worse. I don’t like being stopped by people with guns.”
A Border Patrol spokesman says the agency won’t release data for individual checkpoints. The agency, which describes the checkpoint as temporary despite it being in place for several years, told The Los Angeles Times they have no plans to remove it.
“In the Tucson sector, checkpoints remain a critical piece of infrastructure and a highly effective tool in our enforcement efforts to secure our nation’s borders,” a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official said in a statement.
Organizers with People Helping People in the Border Zone, a humanitarian aid group, have called on the Border Patrol to remove the checkpoint in Amado, a town of about 300 people located 60 miles southwest of Tucson.
Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Manuel Padilla rejected a petition last month from Arivaca residents and businesses calling for removal of nearby checkpoints.
Bob Bertolini, who volunteered as a monitor, told The Los Angeles Times the checkpoint reminds him of those he was required to go through when he was a construction worker helping with the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I have flashbacks when I go north of Arivaca. ‘Are they going to be Iraqi soldiers? Al Qaeda? Are they going to blow me away?'” he said. “This is America. This shouldn’t be happening here.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/27/residents-in-arizona-town-push-for-end-to-militaristic-border-checkpoint/
What is it like living in a police state Amerika?
What follows in this article are both typical and daily examples of how a DHS federalized local police force will act like Stalin’s KGB and abuse its citizens. Acts of police brutality against American citizens is a daily event which takes place multiple times across our country. Not a day goes by that we do not see the unjustified use of deadly force used against innocent citizens and the perpetrators of this state-sponsored violence are rarely, if ever, brought to justice.
Why are the police obsessed with taking our DNA while stopping us for the most petty of traffic offenses? Twenty-six states and the federal government allow genetic swabs to be taken after a felony arrest and without a warrant. Each has different procedures, but in all cases, only a profile is created. About 13 individual markers of some 3 billion are isolated from a suspect’s DNA. And of course, the Obama administration is in favor of seemingly everything, including the taking of our DNA without a warrant.
Is the government doing this because they can, or because they have something nefarious planned for our future with regard to the misuse of our DNA?
Can anyone make some sense out of this Fourth Amendment violation?
Consider what Chicago is doing with a two million dollar grant from the National Institute of Justice. The list was constructed from predictive schema of 400 people mostly likely to commit a crime and one does not have to have a criminal record to make the list.
In Tennessee, even when you prove you are innocent of DUI, you are still guilty in a country where the DHS federalized police are judge, jury and executioner. The Tennessee Supreme Court decided last Thursday that the only use for roadside sobriety tests is to collect evidence against motorists, using them to convict individuals for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). The high court justices overturned an appellate decision from 2012 that found a driver who passed six of the tests and should never have been arrested (view 2012 ruling). David D. Bell was arrested on May 13, 2009, even though the trial judge found no evidence of impairment in the sobriety tests when he reviewed the dashcam footage. This is a case of you are guilty because “we say you are”.
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/02/dhs-has-been-using-national-license.html
“DHS wants to track you everywhere you drive, click here to find out how we can stop it!”
Colossal waste of time. If you’re important enough to them that they really want to track you, they will. There are a number of other ways.
Drones, for instance.